Born Under A Bad Sign
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Can a bad man with bad blood still be good? Sally Jupiter knows there’s good in Eddie Blake, it’s just hard to find. After he turned on her, why would she still be looking? Maybe, in a brutal world even a glimmer of gentleness can mean everything.
1. Mad Dog, Bad Blood

**BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN**

**Chapter One: Mad Dog, Bad Blood**

**New York City, 1937**

**I: Eddie**

Eddie Blake was glad to have a job, a real job that was on the level.

He took the subway every morning and went the building site where his company worked in a new pair of coveralls and workboots with newspaper stuffed into the toes and a shiny new lunchpail. Crazy Jack had bought into a construction company, and he grandfathered 14 year old Eddie into a job he wasn't supposed to be able to hold down until he was 16, and supplied him with the new work-clothes and boots and even the hardhat he wore that was too big for him.

Eddie was growing like a weed, he was sure he'd grow into it. He worked 12 hours a day and it was hard work, too hard and too long hours, some said, for a young man only 16, who was really 14. But he was a strong lad, big for his age, and old beyond his years.

He didn't mind working, it didn't bother him.

The important thing was that the Old Man was gone, he was gone forever.

In a couple of weeks they were going to throw the switch on the wicked old bastard and he was going to smoke and toast in that chair the way he was going to smoke and toast in Hell, forever.

He was gone, and what was left of the family was safe, safe from him, and the very idea of that cocksucker breathing his last in agony put a smile on the face of his oldest son, the person who had been his victim and his adversary the longest.

A smile that died on Eddie's lips as he scaled the third of three flights of stairs to their East New York apartment.

Familiar sounds came from behind the door.

Things breaking, the little kids crying, his mother screaming in pain and terror and the Old Man, the Old Man like a demon out of Hell, swearing and shouting in his wrath.

"…I said youse better gimme some fuckin' money, ya lazy cunt! I gotta get outa the city!"

"Fuck you, Mickey! You take that gun and shove it up your ass! You might as well kill me because I ain't got no fuckin' money and if I didn't I wouldn't give it to ya, ya fuckin' shanty bastard!"

Eddie ran up the last few steps, and burst in through the door.

His father was beating his mother with the butt of a .38, beating her to the ground as she cursed him and the little kids cowered behind Aggie in her waitress uniform and Edie, who was still dressed in the clothes she wore to work the street.

Edie lifted up her skirt, and reached into the top of her garter belt to pull out a switchblade.

She saw Eddie and they exchanged looks.

Mickey Blake didn't see his oldest living son until it was too late, and Eddie swung his lunch-bucket as hard as he could and clipped Mickey in the face with it.

The lunch-bucket was only slightly dented; Mickey definitely got the worst of it.

He went down to the floor in a shower of blood and teeth, and the gun skittered across the kitchen.

Mickey Blake was out cold.

"I'll call the cops." Maggie Blake was mumbling.

She got the gun, and Mickey's wallet, and put them in the pockets of her apron.

"Fuck the cops! This ends here!" Edie Blake insisted.

"Get the little kids and Aggie out of here, Ma. You don't want them to see this." Eddie agreed.

"Edward! Edith! That's your father! You can't!" Maggie protested.

Eddie balled his hands into fists and Edie moved next to her brother, and flicked the blade open.

"My ass! The law had their chance!" Edie snarled

"You better go, Ma. You'd better get the little kids and Aggie out of here." Eddie reiterated.

Margaret Blake picked up her youngest daughter from her high chair, and herded her four other younger children and her second oldest daughter, Agnes, down the stairs and out of the apartment.

She was promising them something, anything, through her swollen lips as tears ran down her puffy, bleeding face.

Aggie shut the door behind them.

Meanwhile, Mickey Blake slowly regained consciousness, moaning and drawing himself to a sitting position.

He found himself alone in the kitchen with Eddie and Edie, both of them black-haired and black-hearted as he was, advancing on him.

That slut Maggie didn't have the balls for it, and Aggie wasn't the type and the little kids were too little, but Eddie and Edie, they were a couple chips off the old block.

Stone cold, right down to the bone.

Mickey tried to smile.

"So, this is how it ends up? Well, better my own kids than the fuckin' chair. I raised you right, I done, you grew up to be a coupla chips off the old block. Fight fair, willya? Give you old man a chance ta get up, huh, Eddie?"

The way he spoke reminded Eddie for a minute of when he was a little kid, and he used to sit on the steps outside and wait on his father to come home.

His Old Man, the biggest, strongest, greatest man in the whole wide world.

He could pick you up in one hand and lift you up so high that you could almost reach up and grab the sun right out of the sky.

It made Eddie wonder how the fuck they had gone from that to this.

"Sure, Pop." He said.

Mickey Blake, the most feared enforcer in East New York, drunk, contract-killer, wife-beater, child-abuser, rapist, murderer, cop-killer, felt in his pockets for one last cigarette.

"Shit. Fucked again." He mumbled.

"Here, Pop. Have one of mine." Edie said.

Eddie lit it for him.

Mickey knew what kind of man he was and what he had done to his children; he wasn't about to ask them for mercy, and he sure as shit wasn't going to show them any.

A moment passed between Mickey Blake and his oldest living children, a moment in which birthday parties and ice cream cones and shiny new nickels and trips to Coney Island mixed in with beatings with booted feet, closed fists, coat-hangers, his belt, anything he could get his hands on, mixed with burning with lit cigarettes and a hot iron and brutal, merciless, drunken rapes in a murky pool that mingled screams of joy with screams of terror, all winding down to this, the end of all things.

Mick the Merciless finished his cigarette and drew himself to his feet to face the daughter and the son he had beaten and raped and tortured and abused all their lives.

"I'm not goin, easy." He warned.

"We wouldn't expect you to." Edie replied.

"But you're fuckin' goin, Pop. Either you or us, this is fuckin' it!" Edie snarled.

"Fine with me. I'll see the both of you in Hell."

Mickey Blake, Eddie Blake and Edie Blake all lunged forward at the same time.

A chorus of yells filtered out the window and were swallowed by the noisy summer street as Maggie Blake used the money in the wallet she had lifted from her prone husband's body to buy her younger children some ice cream from the truck on the corner.

"Ma?" Aggie asked.

"Don't say nothin', Aggie. What kinda ice cream you want?"

***

According to the report filed by East New York cops, cops who respected the memory of Maggie Blake's father, Sgt. Edward Morgan, cops who had arrested Mickey Blake for countless crimes against his family and the rest of the neighbourhood, the hated and feared "Mick the Merciless" died in his apartment while resisting arrest.

His body was quickly and quietly cremated, and the cleaning crew from the local precinct cleaned the Blake family kitchen until it was spotless.

Edie Blake spent a week in the hospital, suffering from a lacerated lung.

Her pimp picked her up at the end of it, and she went back to work on the street, continuing to come home every once in awhile, always with money for the family.

Eddie Blake returned to the building site in midtown Manhattan where he worked the next day with stitches in his face, a black eye, his broken nose taped up and a cast on his left hand; he had broken two of his fingers and three of his knuckles.

The three policemen who came to the scene had only disclosed the details to other cops, but in neighbourhoods like East New York, the walls have ears, and the word on the street travels fast.

In death, "Good Looking" Mickey Blake, "Mick the Merciless" wasn't good looking anymore.

His skull was multiply fractured, shattered, his face pulped, his very brains had been pounded into jelly, not by any blunt instrument but by human fists.

He had been stabbed at least thirty times, deep wounds that penetrated into his bones, and, some said that he had also been emasculated.

The story went onto say that when they came to remove the body and picked it up, it simply fell apart.

After that, Edie Blake had to quit her job as a streetwalker, and her former pimp had her out selling dope and putting the arm on junkies who couldn't pay; men were afraid to touch her.

As for Eddie Blake, everybody in the neighbourhood started giving him a very wide berth.

As the local witch, an Irish gypsy or sorts, who lived in the building across the street from the Blake family observed,

"Mickey Blake was a devil, and God's own couldn't kill him and the Devil's own wouldn't. But his children, they belong part to the Devil and part to God, so they could and they would and they did. Only time can tell whether they will choose to serve God or Satan. It's their choice."


	2. Bite the Hand That Feeds You

_Disclaimer: All I own is the space between my ears, I do not profit from these characters in any way._

**Chapter Two: Bite the Hand That Feeds You**

**New York City: 1940**

**I: Sally**

Sally Juspeczyk wasn't sure what it was about Eddie Blake that she liked, but there was something.

He was just a kid, he was only seventeen, he didn't even have a license to drive.

But he didn't look like a kid, and he didn't act like a kid, even at 17, the Comedian was quite a man.

Sure, he was the kind of a man that nice girls were supposed to avoid, but the Silk Spectre didn't consider herself to be a nice girl.

He was a good-looking guy, and he was funny, in a sarcastic kind of way, and she didn't get the feeling he was looking down on her because she was a broad or because she had been a dancer.

Besides, she was only twenty, and all the other guys, they were so much older than her.

They were all married, or practically married and none of them ever wanted to go out anywhere. Not like Eddie. He kept crazy hours, he was up for going out in the middle of the day or late at night, but those were the best times, when everybody in the city wasn't out mobbing places, and you could go see a decent band or a movie and have a few drinks, smoke the occasional reefer, enjoy yourself.

He never had any money, Eddie didn't, and he told her right off the bat that he didn't have any money, but since they always went out in their costumes, they got a lot of things on the arm.

You could have fun with Eddie, that was for sure, and he didn't crawl up your leg amaking puppy dog eyes at you and ask for your phone number fifty times and try to get in your life and be your only boyfriend and shit like that. What you did when you weren't with him, he didn't ask about and he didn't care.

Sure, he was a tough guy, but Sally had grown up in Brooklyn, too, albeit a nicer neighborhood that Eddie had, and she'd met lots of young tough guys just like him, it didn't bug her.

Hollis, who acted like he was everybody's father, he was always warning her about getting too close with Eddie. You better watch out for that Blake kid, he's not like the guys you grew up with or met when you were a dancer.

He's like a wild animal, and wild animals have a tendency to turn on you.

But Sally knew something all of them didn't know.

She knew why Eddie was like a wild animal.

Dancing had made Sally some good money, and, actually, so had the masked adventurer game. She had a pretty nice apartment, and her own car.

It was a used car, but it was hers, nonetheless, a V-8 Ford that went like hell.

It started out with Eddie saying he thought it was a nice car, and she laughingly said she'd teach him to drive, and then he ended up talking her into teaching him to drive.

Goddamn Eddie, he could talk you into anything.

On one hand, Eddie was a rotten kid, and he was showing signs that he'd grow up to be a bad man. He drove with the horn, and with his mouth; he was the kind of guy who'd get out of the car and have a fistfight with somebody. Every time she saw him he looked like he'd just been in a fight. Pain didn't seem to bother him, he took it and violence for granted, whether it was the pain and violence he inflicted on others or what they inflicted on him.

And sometimes the crooks he routed showed up at the precinct, and sometimes they floated down the river, as dead as they were ever going to be.

On the other hand, you got the idea that Eddie was trying, really trying, to learn how to be a decent person, and that he wanted to be a decent person.

For all his violent nature and his quick temper and his apparent brutality, he really wasn't a bad man, at heart.

There was good in him, you just had to know where to find it.

Eddie had a heart, he had feelings, everybody does. There was generosity in Eddie, and tenderness, and Sally had seen both, not just to her, but to the family that no one knew the seemingly unattached teenager had.

Sally was driving Eddie across the bridge to Brooklyn when he took her completely by surprise.

"Hey Sal, I know I only got this permit an' I can't drive on my own, but you gotta let me borrow the car."

"Why's that, Eddie? You gonna be usin' it again to do the job on some broad? How about you put a blanket down in the back. Because the last time I had to get the car washed to get the smell of pussy out of it." Sally quipped.

"Naah. My kid sister, she's real sick, and I gotta take her to this doctor uptown. She's not well enough for the subway. It's tomorrow, at noon."

Sally didn't even know that Eddie had a kid sister.

"You ain't such a good driver yet, Eddie. What about your parents? Can't they take her?"

Eddie got a strange look on his face, a very un-Eddie sort of look, and then, he bounced back.

"Canya keep a secret, Sal?"

"Sure."

"We got no parents. The Old Man got his up at Sing-Sing awhile ago, may he smoke and toast in Hell, forever, and Ma died last year. We usedta take care of the little kids together, Ma and me, but now, it's just me. Ya can't tell on me, or somebody'll come and take the kids away. Until I'm 18, they say I got no right to keep 'em. Fuck them, it's my fuckin' family. I'm their brother, I can look after 'em, I don't want some fuckin' stranger doin' it. Over my dead fuckin' body they'll take those kids away from me. I'm all they got." He said.

"How many, Eddie?"

"Four. There was 12 of us, but only me and my two sisters who don't live with me and the four little kids made it. I trust one of my sisters with the kids, but not the other, yet. It ain't been long enough for me that she got off the street, and she's got that piece of shit pimp still chasin' her. One of these days, I'm gonna put that cocksucker on ice." Eddie growled.

Sally didn't know what to say.

She just remembered how her father used to tell them that if they thought they had it bad there were lots of kids in this city that had it a helluva lot worse than they did.

Poor Eddie, he was one of them.

"Jesus, Eddie, yunno most guys your age wouldn't do something like that. Take care of their whole family. Sure, I'll help ya out."

That was all she could think of to say, and Eddie didn't say anything at all.

***

Sally sat on the broken-down couch in the main room of an East New York apartment that smelled like cooking grease and cigarette smoke that wasn't big enough for five people to live in, trying to graciously make conversation with the four children between 5 and 12 who were clustered around her, raptly.

The place was clean, the kids were clean, and so were their clothes, which weren't overly ragged, and they all seemed to be reasonably well-fed and happy and healthy, but it was still no way for kids to grow up, no place for them to live.

But they had probably lived there all their lives, and in worse conditions.

And they didn't really have any other place to go or anyone else to look after them, did they?

Just Eddie.

Jesus, he was just a kid, himself, he was only seventeen.

"Are you Sally?" one of the two little boys asked her.

"Yes, honey. What's your name?"

The little boy just blushed.

"That's Mickey. Tell her how old ya are, Mickey." Eddie yelled from one of the other rooms.

Not that there were many other rooms. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen.

Little, shitty rooms.

For five people.

And fourteen people used to live in them.

Jesus Christ.

"I'm eight." Mickey said.

Eddie came out of one of the bedrooms, dressed in street clothes.

She could see why he always wore his costume.

The bottoms of his pants were frayed and they were too short, you could see his ankles. The frayed cuffs of his battered corduroy and sheepskin coat barely reached his wrists, his shirt looked threadbare, and his cap was worn through around the brim.

He probably had newspaper on the bottom of his boots, too, they looked pretty beat up.

"The oldest, Ruth, she's 12. Mickey's 8, Jimmy's 6, and the little one, Allie, she's five. What a good lookin' family, huh?"

The three youngest children ran to him and cleaved themselves to their older brother like he was the most important man in the world.

To them, he was.

"C'mon, guys, break it up. I gotta go take Allie to see the doctor. Ruthie, you watch the little guys for me until I get back, okay?"

The oldest girl, who had sandy-blond hair and blue eyes, nodded.

"Okay, Eddie. Should I make food?"

"No. You're too little, yet. Ya stay away from that fuckin' piecea shit old stove or you'll blow up the whole place. I'll make youse dinner when I get back."

***

The doctor prescribed medicine for little Allie and bed-rest.

After Sally drove Eddie back to the apartment, she watched him put the little girl to bed in one bedroom, a small one with one other bed.

He used a different tone of voice when he talked to her, a real un-Eddie sort of voice, quiet and gentle and sweet.

It made Sally feel like she was intruding on something, so she wandered into the other bedroom.

It was obviously the little boys' bedroom, it had bunkbeds.

"Eddie, where do you sleep?" Sally asked.

"Onna couch. You wanna stay for dinner? C'mon, I insist."

He was a decent cook, she supposed he had to be, and the kids washed their hands before they sat at the table, and they all took part in setting it.

However, they were all rowdy, even the girl, they all smoked, and Eddie smoked, and they swore at one another until Eddie brought the food to the table and yelled at them.

"Shut the fuck up 'n eat, an' quit showin' Sal how tough youse are."

And everybody laughed, and they said their prayers and Eddie made them put out their cigarettes, and then they ate dinner.

Sally didn't know what to think.

She got even more confused a week or two later when she got a call from Eddie in the middle of the night.

His oldest sister and his second oldest sister were in trouble. He needed the car. Would she help?

Sally didn't hesitate to say she'd be right over.

She didn't ask Eddie any questions in the car, she just drove him from East New York to Hell's Kitchen, parked in front of the building to told her to, and followed Eddie into another building, and up three flights of steps.

He knocked on the last door at the end of the hallway.

"Who is it?" asked a tough-sounding female voice.

"It's Eddie."

The girl who opened the door had red hair and green eyes, and she was wearing a waitress' uniform.

"Thank God you're here! She had no choice. He wouldn't let us alone. He's in the kitchen."

There was a big, rough-looking middle-aged man lying on the kitchen floor, with towels all around him and about five bullet holes in him.

He was as dead as he was ever going to be.

A very large young man with blond hair, high cheekbones and a lantern jaw wearing coveralls was shoring up the towels with more towels.

"Did you do it?" Eddie asked him.

"No. I would have killed piece of shit with bare hands." The man replied, in broken English with a heavy Russian accent.

"Me too. C'mon, let's get this garbage outa the kitchen. Sal, lemme have that meat sack."

"Hey, I'm no stranger to dead goons. I'll help ya out." Sally offered.

Sally and Eddie and the Russian packed the corpse up into the bag for stiffs that Sally kept in her car, just in case, along with the towels, and Sally washed her hands in the bathroom sink, showed to her by another girl, shorter than the red-haired girl, with black hair and brown eyes like Eddie's.

"I'm the one who did it. I killed him. He used to be my fuckin' boss, he was my fuckin' responsibility." The girl said.

"Well, he's not going to bother you anymore, honey, that's for sure." Sally said.

When she came out, Eddie and the Russian took the stiff downstairs to the car, and the brown-haired girl, the one who was used to be a hooker, came with them.

"I appreciate you gettin' me outa this jam, Eddie. You know I'm out. I been out since I met Ivan. I ain't doing no more pushing, no runnin' numbers, nothing. Ivan's got his papers and he's gonna move in with us, now. I been cleaning houses, like I did with Ma. I'm straight now, Eddie, yunno I am."

"You'd better be. And I better not catch you with any more of that fucking junk. Sooner or later, it's gonna be war, and you're gonna hafta take care of the kids. I mean it. I won't send youse to jail, I'll put youse in body bags."

"Eddie, I'm clean, I've been clean for six months, I swear on our mother's grave."

"Good."

"Here. It's half his money. Take it. For the little ones."

"Are you sure yuh don't need it?"

"Nah."

"Don't worry, Eddie. I take good care of girls. They both have job, I have job. We get bigger apartment, one on fourth floor. We have nice quiet life, babies someday. Like regular Americans." The Russian assured him.

"Yeah, I hope so. I'll seeya round, okay? C'mon Sal. Let's go."

***

Eddie got rid of the body at the docks; when he got back in the car he was wiping blood off of his boiler suit.

She didn't ask him any questions.

"My sister's not a bad girl. She's just fucked up. Yunno, she's only 16 and she was with that animal since she was 12. He turned her out and got her hooked on junk, and later on he had her selling dope and shaking down the other junkies. But she was better off with him than at home. He never beat her he way our father beat her. Not to mention that the Old Man, that goddamn sick piece of shit criminal bastard, he was fucking her. His own daughter. Ever since she was a kid. He did it right in front of the rest of us, just like he did to Ma, sometimes. Just to show us who was boss. He made us and he could do what he liked with us, that's what he used to tell us. Well, when I got old enough and big enough, I put a fuckin' stop to that. Evie and I did. He's dead and that dope-pushing pimp motherfucker, he's dead, too. Maybe now she'll be alright. Her and Aggie and that big dumb Russkie bastard, right?"

Eddie laughed, and he pushed in the cigarette lighter.

"I told that pimp bastard to leave her alone. For a fuckin' year. I told him she was straight and she didn't want nothin' to do with him. I said I'd kill him, but I never got the chance."

Sally hadn't exactly grown up in a rich family, but they were a normal family.

"Eddie…Jesus, I had no idea."

"Don't tell anybody, alright, Sal?"

"I won't. You, ah, you take pretty good care of those kids, yunno? And your older sisters, too. That Russian guy, he seems okay."

"Awww, he's not too bright, but he's a decent guy. I mean somebody hasta look after the family. It'll be niceta have another man ta help me out. We got nobody else. Nobody else gives a fuck. They never did."

They sat in silence for awhile, and then Sally put the radio on.

***

It wasn't like she didn't know that she should be keeping her distance from Eddie.

And Hollis didn't have to tell her that Eddie was a dangerous man, Sally knew that.

But she knew Eddie better than the rest of them; she knew he had a good side and she really believed that he would never do anything to hurt her.

It wasn't long after that that Eddie got his driving license and with money finally starting to roll in, he bought a car, and moved the kids to a rowhouse in Bensonhurst.

He got them a dog, some mutt he found wandering around down by the docks, probably, and Sally went there, once, to see them all running around in the little yard full of secondhand toys with the dog, swearing and laughing and having a good time, with Eddie standing there smoking a cigar with his arms folded across his chest, looking on like some kind of combination of Fagin and the Artful Dodger

With a little Bill Sykes thrown in for good measure.

She was getting pretty fond of those kids, and of Eddie.

Unfortunately for all of them, though, it wasn't long after that when he showed her that Hollis was right.

You can't tame a wild animal, he can always turn on you.

***

Sally was a superhero, one thing she usually wasn't was afraid.

And one person she thought she'd never have to be afraid of was Eddie.

But she was afraid of him now.

He was a wild animal, there was nothing human in his eyes, just anger and lust and he didn't even seem to hear her crying out in pain and screaming for him to stop.

"No, Eddie! Don't! Don't!"

He didn't want to look at her face, he held onto her neck and pushed her further into the floor.

She could hear him unbuckling his belt.

Christ, he was just a kid, he was only 17, why couldn't she fight him off?

That was when Rolf came to the rescue.

"You vicious little son of a bitch!"

"Hey! Wait! She wanted me to do it! She…"

Rolf cut off his protests giving Eddie a more vicious beating than the one Eddie had gave her.

Sally looked up from the floor, where she was crying and bleeding for long enough to see Eddie, in a bloody daze, himself, buckling his belt and staggering out the door.

"Get up. And for God's sake, cover yourself." Rolf said.

She could hear it in his voice, he thought it was her fault.

How the hell could it be her fault?

Sally was brave, she got up and got dressed and didn't cry.

**II: Edie**

Edie Blake was watching her younger siblings at her brother's house in Bensonhurst for the night; he said he wouldn't be home till morning.

She had just put them to bed and she was getting ready to sack out on the couch when she heard somebody crashing in through the kitchen door, and Eddie's voice, angry and slurred.

She went into the kitchen and turned on the light, in time to catch her brother as he almost fell on the ground.

He was drunk, dead drunk, and somebody had beaten the shit out of him; there was blood all over his face and his costume and his hands.

He dropped the bottle he had with him on the floor and it broke, and Edie almost slipped in spilt cheap whiskey as she steered him to the kitchen table.

"Edie, get me a beer."

"Ain't you had enough, Eddie?"

"GODAMMIT, EDIE, GET ME ANOTHER FUCKIN' BEER!" he yelled.

But when he yelled, he choked on his words, there was a hitch in his voice like he was crying.

Eddie didn't cry.

The last time she saw tears in his eyes he was ten years old and she was nine, and, well, anybody would have cried, anybody.

They never cried out loud, though.

That's what Pop was looking for, and they never wanted to give him the satisfaction.

Aggie cried and screamed and so did the other kids when Pop beat them and did Christ knows what else to them, but not Eddie or Edie.

There were tears in his eyes, you could see on his face where his tears had washed the blood away.

Edie got two beers and a bottle of the good stuff from the top cabinet.

"What the fuck is going on?"

"It's her fault! Her fault! Why the fuck did she act like that if she didn't want me? Oh, Jesus Christ, Edie. Jesus Christ."

"Eddie, what the fuck did you do? What did you do? How could you do that?" Edie screamed.

"I didn't do anything! I got the shit beat out of me by that Nazi cocksucker! What did she hafta hit me for? Jesus, if only she hadn't hit me. Now I blew it. I really blew it. What's gonna happen to the kids if I can't make any money? And she'll never talk to me again. Not after what I did. Jesus Christ, Edie, I'm like Pop. I'm just like Pop."

Eddie put his face in his hands, he was really crying.

When Edie heard that, she got mad.

God damn bitch, always sticking her ass in his face. She knows he's not right in his head, none of us are, and what does she do? She knows what he's like when he gets mad, and what does she do? How the fuck is he supposed to know any better?

"Listen to me, Eddie. You are not like Pop. You've never raised a hand to any of the kids, or me, or Aggie, and you go out there every night and risk your life so that people like Pop end up where they belong, dead or in jail. You been working 12 hours a day, almost seven days a week since you were 14 for us. You got me off drugs and off the street, you made a nice life in a nice neighborhood for the little ones. What you did tonight, you made a mistake. It was a horrible fuckin' mistake, and it was a real goddamn bad thing to do, Eddie, but that Polack bitch was askin' for it. It don't make you anything like Pop. Listen to me, Eddie. Some women don't know what the hell they want, but it ain't up to you to decide for them. You gotta ask nice. And when a girl says no, it means no, no matter how much of a dirty little prick teasin' cunt she is. You're a good lookin' guy, Eddie, and you're a superhero. You'll find enough broads to say yes not to worry about the ones who say no. And nobody's gonna stop you from doin' your job. This city needs you. And you don't need those fancy pricks. All they ever did was laugh at ya, anyway. You got your family, Eddie. We're behind youse a hundred per cent."

Eddie wiped his face on his sleeve.

"Yeah?"

"You bet your ass. C'mon, let's get youse cleaned up and inta bed. You gotta go out there tomorrow and knock some sunnuvabitch like Pop's block off. Let's go, Eddie."

"It was my fault, Edie. It was."

"Yeah. I'll bet it was."

***

Edie Blake knew where the Minutemen's HQ was, and she wasn't afraid to muscle her way in, or to kick in the door of their trophy room, where they were all meeting.

"Who the hell…" Hooded Justice began.

Edie was a small woman, like her mother, but she was every bit as mean and tough as her big brother, and she didn't hesitate to get right in Sally Jupiter's face.

"Now you listen ta me, ya big horsey Polack bitch! You stay the fuck away from my brother! These big lummoxes might feel sorry for youse, but you and I, we both know what ya done, don't we? I usedta work the street, honey, I know all about it! Well, youse can peddle that shit elsewhere, you get me? And, as for you, you in the hood, ya Nazi kraut faggot prick, ya put your hands on my brother again, I'll fuckin' kill you! You know how many big sonsabitches I sent for a big dirt nap in my life? Plenty. Alla you sanctimonious fucks, the way youse always looked down on my brother cos he was from the streets he's tryin' to clean up, you can go fuck yourselves! He don't need you! You leave my brother alone! Fuck youse!"

Edie gave the Minutemen the finger with both hands, angrily crossed one forearm over the other at them, spit on the floor, turned on her heel and left.

"I didn't even know he had a sister." Hollis commented, finally.

"She couldn't be anybody else. Violent, loud, rude, swears like a pirate. I believe she's Eddie's sister, alright." Dollar Bill quipped.

Everybody laughed and they got back down to business.

Sally didn't think it was all that funny, but she laughed, too.

Maybe Eddie's sister was right.

**New York, 1943**

**I: Letter From Sally Jupiter to Eddie Blake**

_Dear Eddie, _

_I'm not sure if you even want to hear from me, but I just got back from doing a USO tour, and all these guys could talk about was their letters from home from their girl._

_I guess your sisters and your brothers write you letters, but I know the kind of broads you run with, they don't seem like the pen pal type._

_So, I hear that you got asked to join the Invaders, which I know makes you happy, because I know how you feel about Nazis. You were right, we shoulda got into this war, earlier, but what can you do about the past?_

_Nothing._

_Anyway, if you don't mind me writing to you, I guess I'll keep doing it. New York is still New York, nothing stops these criminal fucks from doing what they do, and I'm still out on patrol trying to stop them from doing it._

_I hope your family does alright with you away fighting, but if I know you, I know you probably have them taken care of._

_So, I saw you in a newsreel, you looked about as big as the tank you were driving. Seriously, what the hell are they feeding you? When you told me you were going to be a big man someday, I didn't think you meant it, literally. Pretty soon, you'll be ready for your rematch with Rolf, huh?_

_Anyway, I hope you're doing okay, over there, and try not to get killed._

_Lemme know if you want me to quit writing. _

_Sal_

**II: Letter From Eddie Blake to Sally Jupiter**

_Dear Sal, _

_I had Cap hide behind his shield and open your letter, I thought it was gonna explode._

_Sure, you can write to me. Why the hell wouldn't I want you to write to me? You never did nothing to me, after all._

_So, I'm sitting on my ass here in London, going fucking nuts._

_I was in the hospital for awhile, I got shot in the guts and laid in a trench for three days. Me and a Canadian guy named Lucky Jim. He was hurt worse than I was, at first I hadda look after him. He was so fucked up I came outa the trench to drag his ass in. _

_But he's one of those mutants so he healed up faster than I did, and then he looked after me. By the time Cap showed up and I got outa there I didn't really need the doctor, but they stuck my ass in the hospital anyway, and I put a hole through the bullet and stuck it on my dog tags._

_Good luck charm. Big fuckin' bullet, too._

_They should have left me in the Pacific killing Japs if we weren't going to go off and kill Krauts right away. What good am I doing anybody sitting on my ass?_

_I'll bet those mooks in New York are getting cocky without me around, although I hear this Batman guy does a good job of throwing the fear of God into them._

_Nothing reforms a criminal better than dropping his ass off a roof._

_So, they got me doing all this covert spy shit, and pretty much me and Lucky Jim, Steve sends us in to do the dirty jobs, but I end up doing a lot of fucking sitting around and waiting for something to happen. Then, when we get around to invading the Nazis, I know I'm gonna be up to my eyeballs in dirty rotten fucking Krauts, and then I'll be stuck doing the really dirty jobs._

_So keep writing to me. _

_When my address changes, I'll let you know._

_And if you feel like sending me something to remember you by, you know, like a pair of your panties, I promise I'll keep them close to my heart at all times._

_You know, in my pants pocket._

_Write back soon,_

_Eddie_

**New York City, Minutemen Headquarters, 1946**

**III: Sally**

She kept writing to Eddie and he kept writing to her, for the rest of the war, but she didn't try to see him after he came back to New York and he didn't try to see her, either.

Time didn't heal her wounds, it just put distance between her and the night that Eddie the loveable mutt that she left food on her porch for turned on her like a vicious junkyard dog.

Sally just tried not to think about him, although, Eddie was like a bad penny, he was always turning up.

"So, Mr. War Hero's back in town. I went to this nightclub to arrest some punk kid who sells reefers there, and I saw Blake on the dance floor with some blonde girl who was about a foot shorter than him, maybe more. And you couldn't have fit a quarter between them and he's got his hand on her ass, and all. You know, right out on the dance floor. I think it was the same girl he met over in Germany, the one who was a Jewish refugee with the Resistance. Word has it she's real crazy girl, and maybe the war did that to her but maybe it didn't. She's got a lot of money, anyway, so I guess crazy and rich, she's his type. There's a band, mostly colored guys, playing all this loud jazz music and everybody in the whole place is drunk and half of them are smoking reefers and when we showed up people started running for the door. But the band kept playing and Eddie and his girl kept right on dancing and getting all handsy with each other. They were the only couple out on the floor, both of them drunk as lords. He was probably smoking reefers, too, but what the hell am I going to do, arrest the Comedian? I mean with Cap gone, that crazy SOB is America's Greatest Hero. They mention him in same breath with Superman. If he goes out in the street in his costume during the day, women mob him like he's Frank Sinatra. You know he has meetings with President Truman at the White House? He used to meet with President Roosevelt, too. And Prime Minister Churchill. And to think I knew him when he was a sawed-off little waterfront rat in a yellow boiler sit and a ten cent mask who didn't know enough to know you don't raise your hand to a woman and no means no."

"He was just a dumb fucking kid, Hollis. So was I." Sally said.

"How can you take that kind of attitude towards it? I never understood why you didn't press charges against him for what he tried to do to you. I know it wasn't because of Larry."

Sally told her friend a lie.

"I was ashamed. Partly, I blamed myself. And I didn't want the bad publicity. Rolf saved me, we kicked Eddie out, why bother?"

"Do you really feel that way, Sal?"

Now she told him the truth.

"No. You know what bothers me? It would have been different, if he was a stranger. I'd be over it by now. But I really liked the guy, I admit it. I mean, I thought of him as being my boyfriend. Honestly, Hollis, I prob'ly woulda let the impatient little bastard have me, sooner rather than later, I just didn't wanna do it in the goddamn trophy room with everybody waiting in the next room. But that kind of brutality, that kind of violence coming from the guy I was starting to think of as my Eddie, that was what hurt the most. That I meant so little to him that he couldn't even be decent enough to wait till I was ready, that he would just take me, just like that, like he was some kind of goddamn animal and so was I, that's what hurt. I trusted him. He betrayed me. And I could never trust him again. That's what hurts."

"Then why the hell did you write to him?"

Sally knew she couldn't tell Hollis about Eddie's dead mother, and his ex-hooker sister who killed her pimp who was trying to stay clean, and the two little brothers and two little sisters who depended on him, and the ghost of his father, a big, brutal, violent man, a criminal who died in the electric chair, who beat his sons and raped his daughters.

Jesus, what if it wasn't just his daughters?

"I felt sorry for him. I always felt sorry for him. Eddie's got enough trouble, Hollis. I wrote to him because he was off defending our country, doing some really dirty jobs and risking his life to make sure all of us got to keep living our nice cushy lives, masks and regular Joes alike, and he didn't have anybody else to write to him but his sister. It's not like I'm ever gonna actually speak to him again. Which is punishment enough. I see him sometimes, you know, out in a bar or something, or in the street and you should see the looks he gives me. Like I'm the one who got away. Well, good for him. That's enough for me. Just let it go."

Hollis Mason, however, wasn't sure that he could let it go, and he wasn't sure that Sally could, either.

_Author's Note: If you liked this fic, check out my other Watchmen prequel fic in the same AU (still pretty much the Watchmen universe, with a few little surprises), the Joke's on Me, under Comics-Watchmen-The Comedian, and see what the future holds in store in '74. Reviews would be greatly appreciated. Concluding chapter coming soon!)  
_


	3. Every Dog Has It's Day

**Chapter Three: Every Dog Has Its Day **

**New York City, 1948**

**III: Sally**

Behind the closed door of her bedroom in her swank Manhattan townhouse, Sally Jupiter got dressed in an expensive black and yellow gown for New York's third annual dinner in appreciation of its superheroes.

Holding the gown in front of her, she stood before her mirror in her stockings, garters, and underwear, looking for the cellulite Larry had been complaining about.

Not that it bothered him, personally, but he had her career to think about.

Her career.

Her career was being the Silk Spectre, masked hero.

Larry thought her career had to do with action figures and underwear ads.

She didn't see any. Maybe a little tiny bit under her ass, but there wasn't a woman in the world who didn't have a little bit of cellulite under her ass.

As she put the dress on, it occurred to her that she had arrived in the place she had been looking to be when she started. She had money, and fame, indeed, thanks to her picture being painted on B-52 bombers, she was an American icon. Not to mention a nice house, a healthy bank account, a stable, educated husband, and she could go to sleep every night knowing she had done something good for the old city, which was a reward that was greater than the film stardom she had once dreamt of.

The world of a superhero was kinder than Hollywood; as long as you were fit enough to fight, you were alright.

But even so, on her wall, in a simple wood and metal frame, she had a picture of the Minutemen's Christmas party in 1938.

She looked happy, and young, smiling on Rolf's arm, with Eddie kneeling right in front of her.

Sally remembered that she had been thinking about him, Eddie, when they took the picture, he'd been grinning at her all night, and she wondered what he was up to.

_Why didn't you just let him do it?_

She banished that thought from her mind.

Under the picture was a dresser drawer, which contained the only proof that Eddie Blake had a heart, albeit one as black as midnight in a coal mine, the letters he had written her during the war.

She pulled the drawer out and looked at them, then closed it, again, and looked back at the picture.

"Well, Eddie, here we are. Another year older. That one went fast, didn't it?"

Sally had fallen into the habit of talking to Eddie's picture; they had better conversations than she and Larry did, much less arguing about sex and money.

Despite what she told Hollis Mason a few years before, Sally had never quite been able to let it go, even after all these years.

Of course, if she really wanted to, she could have talked to the genuine article.

He still had a house in Bensonhurst, and a swanky apartment uptown, according to the New York Post, and she saw him, here and there, in the course of business, from time to time.

Today, Sally had Eddie on her mind because she knew she was going to see him.

He hadn't been at the 1947 dinner, because at the 1946 dinner Eddie showed up with his crazy off-again, on-again girlfriend German Jewish resistance heroine Sophie Kauffmann.

They both got drunk and started to fight and she pulled out a gun from under her dress and took a pot shot at him.

She missed, on purpose, she was a crack shot, and Eddie seemed to find it amusing, but after that, Miss Kauffmann was not welcome back.

But, she'd left town about six months before, to go join the Israeli army, so as she wouldn't be around, Eddie would probably show up.

Sally came out of her bedroom, ready to leave, and there was Larry, in his customary white shirt and khakis, sitting, as usual, in front of the TV.

"Aren't you a little underdressed?"

"I'm not going."

"What? You want me to go by myself? Why?"

Larry turned around.

"Because I always feel like a first-class schmuck at these affairs. You get drunk and flirt with everything in a mask, and I have to stand there and smile like an idiot while all those big lummoxes look at me like 'why the hell did a girl like her marry a guy like you?' If anybody asks about me, tell them I got the flu. I doubt they will." He said.

"Yeah, but aren't you worried I'll do something to damage my precious image?"

"Sally, your image is set in stone as the woman on the side of the B-52. Nobody but me and your mask buddies know that you're turning into a drunken Polack fishwife, and they're not likely to tell. As long as you keep yourself in good shape and smile for the camera when you're supposed to, no one else will find out. Besides, your career is pretty close to over, anyway."

"You know, Larry, I know you think those kinds of comments hurt my feelings, but they don't. You know why not?"

"No, but I think you're going to tell me."

"Because they come from you. And which one of us had their picture painted on the side of every bomber in Europe, and which one of us is a fuckin' weasel parked in an easy chair who doesn't have enough goddamn balls to take his wife to a dinner? Have a nice night, Larry. I plan to."

"I'll bet."

Sally stormed out and slammed the door.

On her way over in the car, though, she realized she wasn't mad because Larry didn't go, she was mad because he always treated her with a mixture of admiration and contempt.

If he wasn't fawning all over her, then he was sniping and backbiting, like a woman who was about to get the curse.

When she got home, she knew he'd be sorry sorry sorry and after her for the next two or three days to forgive him, it was just the thought of her being around all those guys that were so much better looking than he was it drove him crazy, please forgive me, baby, and then he would be extra super nice-nice until something else happened for him to have one of his mean little fits over.

And she'd tell him, well, Larry, I married you and not one of them, didn't I, which might make him feel man enough to do his duty, which, while not a stellar experience, was something, and something she didn't have to go out to a bar and look for, like usual.

Usually at these affairs the masks came in formal dress with their masks and headpieces on, except Superman always had his costume on and Batman never showed.

Clark was that rare specimen among people, a genuinely good man. He came over and asked her where her husband was, and Sally told him the truth.

"Sally, that man is no good for you. He's been exploiting you and living off your hard work for years. You never should have married him, and you really should divorce him. You deserve better." He told her.

"I couldn't agree more."

Good old Hollis. He had been in her corner from the start and he wasn't likely to leave it, anytime soon. She supposed when she decided to marry somebody, she should have picked Hollis instead of Larry, but she didn't care about running around on Larry and what he thought about it, but she had never wanted to break Hollis' heart.

And she knew she would have.

Sally just wasn't a one-man woman.

Clark politely excused himself as Hollis followed Sally over to the bar.

"Sally, please. You can't sit here all night and drink."

"Watch me."

"Clark is right. You deserve better than that self-serving, money-grubbing weasel you married."

"No I don't, Hollis. I drink too much, I smoke too much, I swear too much and I like to run around with men. If I had a decent guy, I'd feel bad about it. With Larry, I don't give a shit."

"You run around with men because you're looking for the right one, that's all. It's his fault. He did this to you. You know who I mean."

"Hollis, please. I was taking my clothes off for strange men because it was a good way to make money and I didn't mind their company a long time before I met Eddie and that night in the trophy room. I can't spend the rest of my life blaming all my problems on the fact that he was a mean, impatient, no-good little shit about a hundred years ago." Sally protested.

She had a few drinks, and she danced with Hollis a little and walked around, socializing with her fellow masks.

It felt good to be in the company of people who understood and respected her, and she actually started to have a good time.

Of course, then, Eddie showed up in full armor, with his guns on and everything.

But that was alright, she wasn't feeling angry with him, tonight.

Hell, she was almost happy to see him.

She was at the bar as she watched him check his shotgun with the coat check girl, but there he was, yet in his black leather and steel and his stars and stripes, with his guns on his hips like he was Jesse James.

Bad like Jesse James, that was Eddie. He probably loved that song. Eddie always did like the blues and Dixieland jazz, and the places you went to hear it, places where you could get into a lot of trouble and have a real good time.

Eddie in a nutshell.

A lot of trouble and a real good time.

Sally caught herself staring hungrily at him, running obscene scenarios in her mind.

Following him to the john.

Or to his car.

Getting him alone long enough to see if he was still interested.

She had pride when he used to know her, and why shouldn't she? She was young and the possibilities of her exciting life seemed endless.

But now, with thirty looming on the horizon, and ten years of getting dressed up like a two-dollar whore to go smack criminals around and not a lot to show for it, she was older and wiser and usually drunker and she wasn't as picky as she used to be.

_Eddie, I'm not the girl you used to know. I'm an old drunk, now and I'm not much better than a two-dollar whore and I guess I'd take what I can get. _

She was staring into the bottom of her glass, thinking about it.

Maybe outside.

It was dark, nobody would see them.

She was thinking about Eddie pressing her shoulders against the wall with the warm, heavy weight of his strong body, kissing her furiously, running his hand up over the tops of her stockings to touch the sliver of naked thigh between her stockings and garters, when he unexpectedly came and stood beside her at the bar.

"Hiya, Sal."

She jumped a mile.

"Get lost, Eddie. You're drunk."

Sally had no idea why she was telling him to get lost while she was still thinking about screwing him, maybe she just wanted to preserve a little of what was left of her dignity.

"Yeah. And you ain't?"

"Of course I'm drunk. It's a party, ain't it?"

"With you in that dress you're almost wearing, it sure is."

Sally was suddenly furious with him.

That was the way she was about Eddie, one minute she was thinking about screwing him, the next she wanted to break his face.

"Who asked you to look?"

"Everybody's lookin', Sal. Except that stiff you married. Where's he? Cryin' in the john cos when you wear a dress like that, he knows he ain't man enough for youse?"

Same old Eddie.

Mean, loud, sarcastic and crude.

"And you are, is that right, Eddie? Jesus Christ, will you forget about me? What part of get lost didn't you fuckin' hear?"

"Jesus, Sal, how many times do I hafta tellya I'm sorry? I was just a damn kid, what the fuck did I know?"

Sally jabbed her finger into the middle of his breastplate, angrily.

"You knew you wanted me to fuck you and you didn't care if I wanted to or not, you knew that! You want me to break your face?" she demanded, angrily.

He looked a little surprised.

Sally was surprised herself that she'd said it.

"Yeah, Sal, if that's what you want, go ahead. Hit me. I deserve it. I admit it, I was a rotten kid. I did a terrible thing to youse. Youse and a lotta other people. Only difference is, I'm sorry for what I done to youse. Fuck the rest of 'em. I mean, whaddya want me to do about it? Chop my cock off and send it to youse in a box with a pretty fuckin' bow?"

"Hell, I don't know, Eddie. We shouldn't be talking about it, here. I'm just drunk. Don't mind me." Sally muttered.

"That's your problem, Sal. Nobody's minding you. You and me both know if that fuck you married wanted to have a cock he'd have to buy a rooster. What do you do with him for fun? Beat him up when he mouths off to you?"

Sally laughed, in spite of herself.

"Same old Eddie. Why dontcha go fuck yourself, ya rude bastard?"

"You mind if I think about you while I do it?"

Sally found herself at a loss for words, and Eddie laughed, pausing to light a cigar.

"Yeah. Yeah I do. I mind." She replied.

"What? Me and every other guy in America, right?"

"Shit, I don't think they even remember me, anymore. I'm well on my way to being an old married has-been. Now let me get blotto in peace."

"He stood youse up, didn't he? Whatta you lookin' at, pal? Gimme whatever she's havin', an go take a fuckin' powder, willya?"

The bartender got them both a couple of drinks and scurried away.

Sally looked into her glass.

"Yeah. Larry stood me up. But I don't care. I'm havin' a better time without him."

"Jesus Christ, what a fuckin' asshole. Why the hell did you marry that pencil-necked fuckin' weasel, anyway?"

"I don't know. Prob'ly 'cause I knew I wasn't the marryin' kind and I didn't care if I broke his heart. Hey, Eddie, you wanna dance?"

He gave her a funny look, but then he just grinned, that wicked Eddie grin of his.

"Sure, doll."

***

The rest of the night passed by in a blur, as Sally got really drunk, but then again, a lot of masks got really drunk at these dinners.

She was somewhat aware that she was getting some funny looks, especially from the likes of poor Hollis that she was spending the whole night dancing and drinking with Eddie, laughing it up like they were 17 and 20 again and the trophy room had never happened, but Sally was too drunk and having too much of a good time to care.

She got too drunk to drive home and she realized she was making something of a spectacle of herself, hanging on Eddie Blake's arm because she was too sloshed to walk on her own, but he put her in a taxi and paid the driver and told her to go home and sleep it off.

Larry had waited up for her; he was extremely contrite. He apologized a million times while he was helping her get undressed and get to bed, blaming himself and his meanness for her going out and getting drunk and he was indeed sorry sorry sorry and acting very nice-nice.

As for Sally, she was drunk and she was sleepy and she went out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

That night she had the stupidest dreams for a woman almost thirty, an ex-stripper from Red Hook who hadn't been a virgin since she was 14, who beat up criminals for a living and spent a good bit of her free time either hanging around with other masks and telling war stories or looking for appreciative male fans in bars.

She dreamt about the evening that had just past, the one she spent dancing with Eddie to slow jazz music, in a proper dress like a real woman, in a real man's arms.

***

A few days later she was having an argument with his picture.

She often had arguments with Eddie's picture, especially in the wake of meeting up with him.

This time, she was especially furious at him for awakening yearnings in her for real genuine affection, for a little kindness, a little tenderness, that she thought she'd buried deep a long, long time ago.

The fact the first glimmer of either she'd had in a long time came from Eddie was especially infuriating.

"Goddamn it, Eddie! This is your fuckin' fault! I'm in this mess causa you! You junkyard dog waterfront rat bastard, you! I guess I married Larry cos he was everything you weren't. Stable. Educated. Respectable. And did I say boring? Boring! Shit, he's boring all day long, and worse, boring all night. So maybe I wanted it from ya? So sue me? Was that a crime? I didn't want it then, not with everybody waitin' in the other room, and I sure didn't want it the way ya tried ta give it to me! Ya rotten bastard, couldn'tcha wait? Didn'tcha know any goddamn better? Now, I gotta find this out? I gotta find out that you, ya low-down, two-tone son-of-a-bitch might be the only man in this rotten world who really gives a damn about me, as a woman? Why din'cha act like this ten years ago, instead of beatin' the shit outa me and throwin' me on the floor! It's your fault, Eddie! All your fault!"

Of course, most of the time Sally knew that everything she didn't like about her life wasn't all Eddie's fault, and that he wasn't worth the powder it would take to blow him to Hell, and half the time she didn't even think about him.

Most of the time.

But she was thinking about him, now and when she spent time thinking about him, sometimes she even missed him, sort of.

One thing about Eddie, until he decided to try and beat her half to death so he could rape her, they always had a good time.

And the motherfucker remained a real good-lookin' son of a bitch, too.

Helluva man.

Leave it to him to show her that he still had good in him; leave it to her to still be able to see it.

It was the worst of times for Sally to remember she had a heart, because the mask game was becoming less and less of a real vocation to eradicate crime and more and more of a stunt to sell underwear and action figures, because she knew she was getting to the point where she couldn't do it, anymore.

And her marriage got worse with every passing day.

Every day was a bad day and a drunken day, and on one bad, drunken day, she decided to get even with Eddie Blake.

For everything.

***

It started out a pretty normal day.

She got out of bed around noon with every muscle in her body hurting from a fight the night before and took a long shower.

Larry was at his office that she paid the rent on, negotiating a deal for her to model for another action figure or sell dish soap, or something, so Sally got dressed and went to a bar she knew of for lunch and drinks.

It was a nice place, a lounge, really, not some kind of dive; she hadn't yet degenerated into hanging around in sleazy dives trying to pick up men, she figured that would be in another ten years, or so.

She met a guy, a former GI who had flown 42 missions in the belly of an airplane with her likeness painted on it.

He seemed like a nice guy, he looked one hell of a lot more manly than Larry did, and he remembered who she was.

She asked him if he wanted to go to the Biltmore to have another drink.

Sally always took the guys she picked up to the Biltmore, a girl she went to school with and had danced with worked the front desk on weekdays, and she knew how to keep her mouth shut.

He was a nice guy. Idolised her. He was starstruck that she was drinking with him, and he was starstruck that she wanted to get a room for the afternoon for them, but he wasn't too starstruck to be able to do his duty.

He wasn't bad, but he wasn't great.

Then again, that's the way it was with most men. Sally had learned not to expect a whole hell of a lot from them, if she had her fun and they had theirs, that was good enough.

You weren't going to meet someone every day who drove you to heights of screaming, sheet-ripping ecstasy.

She was polite to him when she left.

He didn't want her to go, and he tried to make a date for another meeting, another drink, an address or a phone number.

He tried to tell her he was a nice guy, a good guy, which meant, in the end, he wouldn't be too happy with her.

Sally had the room for the rest of the day and she didn't mind if the guy stayed in it, she was going home.

She didn't want to get attached to any of these guys; it was easier, this way.

When she was sober enough Sally despaired that this was what her life had come too. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who saw her as a combination meal ticket and cash cow who would have had to buy a rooster to have a cock, whiling away the days drinking and picking up men for anonymous sex in hotels, then prowling the streets or going to the old hangout at night.

She was supposed to be retired but she didn't know what else to do with her life but be a superhero.

Drink, screw, fight, sleep, yell at Eddie's picture once in awhile. Pose for happy pictures in magazines with a plastic smile on, sign papers, read agreements for underwear ads, make sure Larry wasn't fucking her out of her hard-earned money.

But Sally didn't like to think about it, that's why she tried not to stay too sober for too long.

On her way home from her afternoon assignation, she had a few more drinks, in another bar, and it occurred to her that most of the guys she had her afternoon dates with, the younger ones and the older ones and the guys around her own age, the ex-GI's and the starstruck young fans, and the good-looking older guys who seemed to understand her more than the rest, they all had one thing in common.

They were all generally the same height and build as Eddie.

They were all of them Eddie but not Eddie, over and over again.

That realization made her mad.

No, it made her furious.

He was like a bad penny that wouldn't stop turning up. No matter what she did or where she turned, Eddie was always just around every bend, at every corner, behind every door, always and everywhere, since she was 20 years old, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

Well, if that was the way it was going to be, then she was going to have to resolve things between them.

She looked at her watch.

If any of those kids were still at school, they wouldn't be home yet.

That gave her plenty of time to go and do what she had to do.

In a white-hot fury, Sally got in her car and lead-footed it to Bensonhurst.

She parked a block away from the house where Eddie had lived and went pounding on the door.

He still lived there, the son of a bitch, and it was an hour until the youngest of those kids got home from school and he was still in his goddamn bathrobe.

He was sure as hell a man, now, a full-grown man, six four and two-forty, but no sooner did he let her in the door than she got that first punch in, hit him as hard as she could, harder than she had ever hit anybody before, and she knocked out a couple of his teeth.

That gave him something to think about.

Eddie hit her back. Not the first time she hit him, or the second, but he had to, because Sally was beating on him like she meant it, like he was some shitheel in the street she was trying to bring down, and when he hit her she hardly felt it, she just kept fucking hitting him, it felt goddamn good to hit him, and hit him, and hit him again.

She was screaming at him the whole time.

"…ya lousy, rotten, no-good shanty Mick cocksucker! Ya ruined my life, and ya fucked yours up pretty good too! Ya goddamn mad dog sunnuvabitch…"

He didn't go down, though, until she kicked him right in the balls, like she was punting a football, and that was it.

That was it.

"I hope you ain't thinkin' about gettin' up and hittin' me back, Eddie, because I'll snap your fuckin' neck." She told him.

And just then, she was mad enough that she had the strength to do it.

He didn't say anything and he didn't move; but considering how hard she'd just tried to drive his nuts back into his stomach, she figured he couldn't do either.

The fight was over almost as soon as it started, and then whatever had got into Sally in that bar just left her as fast as it possessed her.

It was like coming to after being knocked out, and there she was, with blood on her hands and blood on her coat, and Eddie's goddamn front door was still open and he was in a daze on the floor, eyeballing one or two of his teeth, holding onto his nuts with both hands and swearing into the carpet and bleeding all over the place.

And Sally couldn't figure out how the fuck that had happened.

She was suddenly sorry.

Sorry she hit him, sorry she showed up at all, because now that her rage had passed she didn't feel any better and nothing at all had changed.

She slammed the door shut, bent over, and picked his teeth up for him.

"I can't believe I did that. You conscious, Eddie?"

"Mostly. Fuck, that hurts! I ain't even got my shorts on, fa Chissakes! Are you done, Sal?" he finally croaked.

"Yeah. I'm done. That makes us even, now." She told him.

"Yeah, but didja have to kick me in the balls? Fuck, I can't even fuckin' move! There goes my whole night."

"Considering what you tried to do to me, yeah, I think kickin' you in the balls is appropriate! I gotta be losin' my mind. What the fuck am I doin' here, anyway? Look, I got yer goddamn teeth. I'll put 'em in a wet towel for ya. Your dentist can put 'em back in, if you get there in a hurry."

He dragged himself to his feet and she realized she'd beat him pretty bad; anybody else wouldn't have got off the floor until the ambulance came with a stretcher.

"Yeah, you're retired. Retired, my ass."

He staggered into the kitchen to use the phone.

"Hey, Edie? Can you get Jimmy and Allie from school? I dunno, use Ivan's truck, I'll bet he ain't workin'. No, I'm fine, I just had a coupla girls over and I lost track of time. I gotta clean up the place. No, I ain't hurt, I'm just tired. Really. Look, Edie, just go get the kids before they leave and walk back here. You feed 'em tonight and I'll come get 'em, later. Okay? Bye."

Eddie stumbled into the can, swearing, and Sally wondered what she should do, now.

She stood in the kitchen for awhile, listening to the water running in the bathroom.

She wasn't sure why she wasn't leaving, so she washed the blood of her hands and her coat and by then Eddie came out of the bathroom.

He didn't bother to put a towel around his waist, he just walked into his bedroom, naked, and came out a few minutes later in fatigue pants and boots and a fatigue A-line undershirt.

He had cleaned up his face pretty well, and put a few clips on the cut over his eye; after he washed all the blood off his face it looked a little better.

Not much.

Still it wasn't his face she'd been looking at.

"Well, youse drivin' me to the hospital, Sal?"

"Jesus, Eddie, did I beat ya up that bad?"

"Naw. I just can't drive, I'm seein' double. An' my dentist don't work on Wednesdays."

"Sure. I'll drive ya. Then maybe we can go have a drink."

***

After they got through at Brooklyn General, Eddie stopped at a phone booth and told his sister to keep the kids for the night; he was out with an old friend.

Then, they went out and got blind, stinking drunk, and complained to each other.

"You're goddamn lucky that your girl Sophie, or any of those other broads you run with ain't the marryin' kind. Hell, I ain't the marryin' kind. I wish I never got married. At least not to Larry. Jesus, Eddie, why is it whatever I do in my life, it always seems to lead to you?"

"Because we got unfinished business together, Sal. An' you didn't finish it kickin' my ass all over the place, although, I gotta admit, I had it comin'."

"You did, you son of a bitch! I really used ta like you, yunno? I mean I kept all your secrets. I still do. Why'd you have to go and do a thing like that to me? Dontcha know you broke my fuckin' heart?"

Eddie looked into his glass and then looked back at her.

"Yeah. I know. I got no excuse, Sal. I was young, dumb, and full of come, and ya drove me crazy. I ain't sayin' it was your fault, but, Jesus, I'd take one look at youse and my pecker would get so hard my balls hurt for a week. Then, you told me how youse was changin' your clothes and…"

He stopped talking, finished his drink and swore under his breath.

"…I had it all figured out that was the night, and when you socked me one, I lost it. I know youse don't believe me I'm sorry about it, because I ain't never been sorry for anything in my life, hardly, but I'm sorry for what I done to youse, Sal. I'm sorry every fuckin' day. I had one fuckin' minute in my life where I acted like Pop, an' it was enough to fuck up my whole fuckin' life. But it's my fuckin' fault, so who am I gonna cry to? You? Yeah, right."

He got up and got another drink, and as he was raising it to his lips, Sally just said it.

"I forgive you, Eddie."

He dropped his glass on the floor.

It broke.

"You what?"

"I forgive you, Eddie. It was a long goddamn time ago. You were just a dumb kid and so was I, and we've both been paying in spades ever since. I forgive you. I really do. If I don't forgive you, this thing is gonna ruin what I got left of my fuckin' life."

Sally waited for him to say something, but Eddie just got this look on his face, this very strange sort of look and he stared at her like he had never met her before in his life.

"How the fuck can you forgive me for doin' what I did?" he asked

"Well, for starters, Eddie, you didn't do it. And, sure, maybe Rolf cut you off at the pass, but you know where I lived, you knew where I worked, you knew what kind of car I drove. You coulda tried again. That's what that rotten father of yours woulda done, because he was a vicious, evil, criminal son of a bitch. But you ain't him, so you didn't do it."

They were both quiet for awahile.

Neither of them knew what to say, but then again, neither of them wanted to just get up and leave.

"So, how'd your life turn out, Eddie? I mean, really, not just the shit from the papers."

"Alright. The kids are almost all grown up. I got money to burn and I don't have to wear shoes with newspaper in the toes and on the bottom anymore, right? You know what my cover is? I'm a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. I walk by, everybody says, there goes Eddie Blake. He's some kinda G-man. And look at me, shit, I'm as big a hero as Cap was and Supes and the Bat are. I have lunch with Nick Fury and dinner with Harry Truman. But it doesn't matter. They can put my ass in Life magazine, cigar and all, and I'm still the goat. Because I still end up doing all the dirty work. Eddie, your country needs you. That's how it starts, and it never ends up pretty. But they ask me to do it because they know I can and they know I will. What a fucking joke. And on top of it, Sophie skips town on me. Not that I was madly in love with the broad, but I liked her. She was the only broad I ever knew who was crazy enough to stick with me. Does Max Grossmann care if she sees me on the side? No. He's an understanding guy. How do you like that? I save her life, I put up with her crazy Jew ass for three years, and Max, he fuckin' marries her even though she's still fuckin' me oncea week, an' what does she do? She skips town on both of us. Crazy Jew bitch. But whadda I gotta say about it? Nothin' in my life is mine. My kids are my Ma and Pop's, Sophie's Max's wife. All I got's my work. And when what I do slips out, all these fuckin' Commie egghead longhairs are waving their fingers at me sayin' I'm a bad guy. I like that. I bust my ass every day and risk my life so they can have the right to live in a free country and call me an asshole and what do I get? Jacked off. In one breath they say I'm a hero, in the next they say I'm a menace, and every third mask I know gives me dirty looks. Did I say what a fucking joke it all is? Lemme say it again."

"At least you got a life, Eddie. At least you got work. You know what I got? Shit, that's what. You know what's a fucking joke? My marriage. And so is my job. The Minutemen are on their way out, our day has come and gone. Pretty soon I'm gonna be thirty. I'm goin' to pot. I'm on my way out. It's all downhill from here. Things didn't turn out like I was sure they would, but I sure as hell can't blame you for most of it. I mean, the only thing I got goin' for me is that I got my money, and my house and my car and they're mine. Nothin' has Larry's name on it. I did that for myself, at least. But what happens next? I dunno. Maybe I got a few years of B movies and underwear ads in me, yet, but I wake up every morning and I'm in pain from ten years in the street. If I don't retire for real and leave it all behind, soon, I'll end up some kinds cripple. I could take pills, but, Jesus, who wants to be all hopped up on goofballs alla time? The last thing I need is to turn into a goddamn junkie. So, I guess I drink too much. I'm not what I used to be. You seen my legs. They look like hell. I got that cellulite shit under my ass. I never had any of that shit. You can feel it. It's disgusting. At least that's Larry's excuse. I mean, is it that bad? Go ahead. I wanna know."

Eddie had his hands under the table in seconds, flat.

She expected him to grab at her, awkwardly, but he wasn't a goddamn kid anymore; he knew what he was doing.

He had good hands, strong hands, and the way he was touching her made her feel good all over.

Maybe that was the only thing that mattered.

So Eddie had been a rotten kid and he was a bad man, so she drank too much and ran around with men and liked being a mask more than being some Hollywood bimbo.

If they could still get along, if they could make each other feel good, what did the rest of it matter?

"I think ya legs look great, doll. I didn't see nothin' wrong with them. An' ya ass feels pretty good, too. You're still pretty as you were when they took that picture of you they made into the pinup. I got one on my wall. In my bedroom. Where I can see it when I'm lyin' in my bed at night, Alone. Now let' see about you bein' on your way out…"

"Jesus, Eddie, we're in public, getcha thumb outa the cookie jar! You wanna 'nother drink? I wanna 'nother drink. Hey, waiter! 'Nother round over here."

She didn't insist again on Eddie getting his hands out of the cookie jar, and he didn't right away, and that was alright with her.

Although when he did get his hand out from under the table and licked his fingers, Sally almost found herself diving under the table.

The only thing that really stopped her was that she was too goddamn drunk, and if she made any sudden moves, she probably pass out.

They were both plenty goddamn drunk.

"You got no shame, Eddie. You're a dirty bastard. Look, next weekend, Larry's goin on a business trip. Trying to get me a cereal ad, or somethin'. He'll be leavin' Friday morning, and coming back Saturday night. Why don'tcha come over on Friday, around noon."

"Are you drunk, or somethin'?"

"Hell yeah, I'm drunk. But I mean it, Eddie. So, whaddya say?"

"What do I say? I say, you think I'm a dirty bastard? You bet your ass I am. An' nex' week when Mr. No-Dick ain't home, I'm gonna show youse just how dirty I am."

***

They leaned on each other as they left the bar, and Sally almost crashed her car a few times on her way to Eddie's place and then home.

She couldn't believe what she'd done that day, when she went back home it looked like a foreign place to her.

She also hardly noticed she had a shiner until Larry brought it up.

He might not have said anything to her if she hadn't walked past the TV.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"I'm a superhero. What do you think?"

"Are you sure it wasn't a bar fight?"

"Fuck you, Larry! I put the food on the goddamn table around here, I'm entitled to go out and have a good time if I want to. I sure as shit can't have one at home with you."

He didn't say anything.

Larry was a lousy arguer.

He'd say something snotty and yell a little but if she got really mad, he'd just back down.

It wasn't so much that he believed her or didn't, it was just that as long as she was still pulling in the big bucks and nobody was taking her picture tomorrow, Larry didn't care.

"I'm goin' ta bed. You and Milton Berle have a wonderful evening."

***

The next week was the longest week of Sally's life.

Larry was sorry sorry sorry and nice-nice the morning after she came home with the shiner, which made her really want to hurt him, to smack him around, good.

It crawled by, day after interminable day and left her thinking about Eddie at the party in his costume, and Eddie at the bar, licking his fingers and that Eddie had a picture of her, on his wall, in the bedroom, a poster, hung where he could see it while he was lying in bed at night.

Sally sat there in her apartment, wearing make-up and earrings and a low-cut dress and her best nylons, on a Friday afternoon high above bustling midtown Manhattan, thinking about Eddie Blake lying in his bed, looking at her poster, getting off.

She crossed her legs and uncrossed them, really thinking about it. He practically told her that he would look at her picture and whack off, the dirty SOB. He had big hands, Eddie did and he was a big son of a bitch, she wondered if his pecker was as big as his hands, as big as the rest of him, lying there in his bed in one of his crummy undershirts with his hand down the front of his crummy shorts, looking at her on the wall.

It looked pretty goddamn big sitting lying there asleep on his leg when he came out of the bathroom, naked.

The big bastard came strutting out of the john like he knew she was going to be eyeing him up the way a junkyard dog eyes up a nice, fresh, juicy steak.

Goddamn Larry didn't fucking look like that, naked, no he goddamn well didn't.

Sally shook her head, disgusted with herself.

"What the fuck is the matter with me? What am I, some bobby-soxser with Eddie's picture on her bedroom wall? Christ!"

She looked at her watch and she was nervous.

What the hell she was nervous about, she didn't know, but she jumped a mile when the heavy knock on the door came.

Sally cursed herself for feeling weak in the knees as she got up and answered it.

It was Eddie, and he had a goddamn suit on, and his hair combed back with oil.

His face had healed up fast, and his teeth had stayed put.

"Hiya, Sal."

"Hiya, Eddie."

She looked both ways before she shut the door, and closed the blinds.

"I don't think anybody's gonna see us this far up in the air."

"You never know. I don't wanta take no chances. Get your fuckin' dogs off my table, fa Chrissakes!"

He was sitting there with his feet on her expensive table, leaning back on her expensive chair, smoking his stinky cigar and smirking, same old Eddie.

"You gonna make me?"

"Fuck it. It's Larry's table, anyway. I was gonna cook something, but then I remembered, I'm a lousy cook."

"That's okay, Sal. I ain't hungry."

He got up out of the chair.

The last time he had touched her, the only time he had touched her except for that shameful drunken grope in the bar, he was brutal and rough and terrifying, and it scared her to think he was maybe some sicko, always brutal and rough and terrifying.

Maybe he was going to try and beat her up again, maybe that was how he got his rocks off.

As much as she wanted him, she was afraid for him to touch her again and she stiffened up as he approached her, closing her eyes and biting her lip.

"Hey, Sal?"

He was talking to her in the tone of voice he'd used, all those years ago, when he was putting his kid sister to bed.

Sally opened her eyes.

"Ya still afraid of me?"

"A little."

"Sal, I ain't gonna hurt you. I promise. I ain't no sick freak."

"I believe you, Eddie."

"I never meant ta hurt youse in the first place."

"I know."

He held her hard, and he held her fast, and he kissed her almost desperately, but there was no brutality in it.

Eddie's shoulders were broader than his suit, and she could feel the muscles in his back and his arms through the fabric, along the strained seams.

And although he had washed and washed and washed she could still smell him, cigar smoke and beer and sweat, honest sweat and this deep musky smell that had been making her feel molten since 1940.

He felt like a man should feel, smelled like a man should smell, and she could feel the heat rising into her face.

Lust rushed in where from where fear had suddenly gone.

"Jesus, Eddie, what a fuckin' man you are." She told him.

He didn't say anything but he had this look on his face, this very un-Eddie sort of look.

They had both worn complicated clothes and wished they hadn't, because they had to be removed carefully.

Eddie was so careful, very careful as he laid her down on the bed with its usually cold sheets and he still had that very un-Eddie look on his face when he said what he said.

"I'm sorry I hurt ya, Sal. I love you, ya know that, don'tcha?"

"Say it, again."

"I love you."

"Do you really, Eddie? I mean, really?"

"Yeah. Really. Honest to God, Sal, if a guy like me can still swear on His name, I love you."

He was about to kiss her again, and then she said the word he least wanted to hear.

"Eddie, wait."

"Sal, Jesus, don't do this to me!"

"I gotta tell you something first, Eddie. I'm not the girl you fell in love with. Maybe you were a rotten kid and you grew up to be a bad man, but I became a dirty, drunken fuckin' whore. I drink all the goddamn time. An' I cheat on Larry with other guys. Lots of guys. Guys I don't even know. Just because they're fans of mine. You still love me, Eddie? Even though I'm a rotten, lousy, dirty…"

Sally couldn't help it, she started to cry.

Tenderly, gently, Eddie held her in his arms and comforted her.

"Don't cry, Sal. Jesus, don't cry. Ya didn't do nothin' wrong. Jesus, it's just fucking. You know the kinda things I done in my life? The kinda things it's my job to do? My God, Sal, I killed my own father with my bare hands, and a whole lotta criminal pieces of shit like him the same way since. And during the war, Jesus, if it was a Kraut or a Jap and it moved you killed it, or else it woulda killed you. An' even after all that, even after what I tried to do to youse, you lemme have another chance, an you think because you did a little fucking and drinking, I ain't gonna love you no more? Jesus, Sal, you're the only good thing ever happened to me in my whole piecea shit fuckin' life. I'll love you till the day I die."

Sally's mind was reeling.

After all these years, was this love?

Real love?  
From a man like Eddie Blake?

Why not?

Some people go their whole life without ever really loving anyone, or really being loved.

"I love you, too, Eddie. I must be out of my fucking mind, but I love you, too."

She reached for him to kiss him, again, and she didn't feel like she was doing something horrible or shameful, anymore, because she forgave him, and now, everything was alright.

He was kissing her neck, and cupping her breasts in his hands; rolling her nipples between his long fingers.

"Show me Eddie. Show me all the ways you love me." Sally moaned.

She tangled one hand in his thick, dark hair and put her arm around his broad shoulders, arching off the bed as he kept kissing her, sucking her nipples and teasing them with his tongue, he was so hungry for her, she'd never been with a man who was so hungry for her.

Then he was kissing her rounded belly that she was so damned ashamed of, and then her thighs.

She drew herself up higher onto the pillows, trying to guide his head with her hand.

He laughed.

"Please Eddie, please…"

"You think you gotta beg me, doll?"

She wanted to open her eyes and look at him but she just couldn't, and she knew she was moaning, shamelessly and all kinds of terrible, dirty things were on the tip of her tongue while he was, well, he was doing that thing to her.

"Don't…don't, Eddie…stop. I'm going to…to…"

"You're gonna what, baby? You're gonna come in my mouth? That's what I want. Come for me, baby…c'mon…"

Did he really say that?  
Could she really just give herself up to such shameless lust?

You bet your ass.

She let go of him and grabbed a fistful of sheet in either hand, arching off the bed with a veritable roar.

Her eyes were open now, and she was looking at Eddie, reaching for him, running her hands all over his body, pulling him down on top of her.

Shamelessly.

She reached between them and put her hand around his cock, and it was long and thick and hard, like she thought it would be and she soaked up the growling, rumbling moan he made like it was music to her ears.

"Oh God, I want you. I want you to fuck me." She moaned.

"Do you, baby?"

"Yes…oh, yes."

He kissed her again and she didn't care where his mouth had been as he slowly pushed his cock into her, almost hesitantly, like he was afraid he was going to hurt her.

That reminded her too much of Larry.

He was so awed by her he could hardly ever get it up for her and when he did he screwed her like he was a guest in an expensive hotel trying not to make too much of mess in the room he couldn't afford.

"More, Eddie…more…not like that."

"I don't wanna hurt you, Sal." He gasped.

"You won't. Fuck me like you mean it."

"I mean it, doll…Like this?"

He thrust into her, hard, fast and deep.

Sally gasped.

"Like that! Like that! Don't stop! Don't stop!" she fairly screamed.

He wasn't about to.

She had her arms around him, she had her legs around him, and she was moaning and keening and gasping and the headboard of the bed was knocking against the wall and she pushed back against him and squeezed him inside her, she was willfully, shamelessly fucking Eddie Blake for all she was worth, sweating like a pig and howling like a beast and coming like a freight train, and she didn't care, she didn't care at all.

"Oh shit, honey, you are so fuckin' hot, you're gonna make me come so hard…"

She had her legs almost around his shoulders and Eddie had one arm under her and he grabbed hold of one of the slats on the bed with the other and pushed into her harder and faster, a rumbling groaning roar building up in his deep chest that he let out as he let go, taking her over the top with him, one more time.

Sally collapsed into the mattress and Eddie collapsed on top of her, briefly, before rolling over onto his back.

"Fuck me, that was worth the wait. God damn, woman, no wonder your bush is red! Shit!" he exclaimed.

Sally wondered if he would want her close to him, she nudged over a little, hesitantly, and Eddie hauled her into his arms.

"You know something, Eddie? I feel better than I have for years. I'm happy and I don't give a damn."

He yawned.

"Me too, doll."

"Hey? You mean after all these years all I get is one screw and you're going to sleep?"

Eddie laughed so hard he almost fell out of bed.

"What's so fuckin' funny?" Sally insisted.

"You are. Sal, you fucked my goddamn brains out. Lemme close my eyes for a few minutes, willya? Don't worry. I ain't done with you. Shit, I have not yet begun to fuck. I may be a bad man and an evil sunnuvabitch, but when I go to bed with a woman, she goes to bed tired and wakes up smilin'."

"You better not just be blowing your own horn, Eddie."

"Naah, that's up to you, Sal."

***They did end up having dinner, later, much later, Eddie went into the kitchen and cooked something and they didn't even get dressed to eat and ended up back in bed.

He wasn't just blowing his own horn, the man was relentless, and inexhaustible, built like a bull and hung like a stallion, and he was very, very good and she liked it.

So much she was knew she should have been ashamed how much she liked it, but she wasn't.

"Ya want me to stay, tonight?"

What the hell am I doing, naked in bed with Eddie Blake, lying here with my head on his chest and his arms around me, after what he tried to do to me? What right does he have, after what he tried to do to me to be so goddamn good in the sack, to make dinner for me, to ask if I want him to spend the night?

My own husband never told me he loved me, and I sure as hell don't love him.

"That would be nice, Eddie. Nobody else does."

"Does what?"

"Stay the night with me. Like I toleja, I sleep around on Larry alla time. I have to. Not here, though. In hotels. I make 'em go out and buy rubbers cos I don't trust 'em, my fans, and when I'm done, I leave."

She felt Eddie shrug.

"So? I do the same thing. But with broads. I mean, like I said before, that prick you married, it's obvious he wouldn't have a cock unless he bought a fuckin' rooster. And when ya got people pantin' after you and they want it, they want it bad, they want it alla time, whaddya gonna do? Be like fuckin' Superman and light and a candle inna church an' pray for deliverance, or take cold showers or whatever he does? I wouldn't touch the kinda broads who run after me without a rubber, that's for fuckin' sure. And I sure wouldn't bring 'em into my house. I got kids livin' there, yunno? Except I gotta place uptown where I take 'em. You oughta look into it. It's cheaper than always goin' to hotels." He replied.

Sally laughed.

"You gotta funny way of seein' things, Eddie."

"I see things the way they really are. The funny thing is the way everybody else sees 'em. You oughtta getta divorce, an just go enjoy your life. Ya only live once, Sal, and you're dead a long time."

"So, I guess you still got your brothers and sister at home."

"Not all of 'em. Ruth's a teacher now, at PS 142. This is her first year. She left right after the war. Mickey moved out this year, he became a cop. In the neighborhood, in Bensonhurst. He don't live too far away. Jimmy's probably goin' to college, he's still in high school, an' he's still at home. So's Ellie. She's only in the seventh grade."

"Eddie Blake, family man. What about your older sisters?"

"They're still with the Russian. He never married either of 'em, but, hey, who gives a fuck, right? As long as they're all saying on the straight and narrow. Edie's pregnant this year with their first kid, Aggie tells me next year it's her turn. Soon, I'm gonna be Uncle Eddie. Everybody's happy."

"You did good, Eddie."

"I did the best I could, considerin' the way we came up. None of us went to jail. None of us is a piece of shit criminal. None of us ended up in the bughouse."

"Like I said, you did good, Eddie."

"Yeah. I guess I did."

***

Eddie rallied for one more encore in the morning, and he made one more meal for her, and then he took a shower and put his suit back on.

He lingered as long as he could, and then, around noon, he left.

"Hey, don't be a stranger for the next eight years, Eddie. Call me, okay?"

"Sure, Sal. I'll callya."

He got that look on his face, that un-Eddie look, again.

He opened the door, he kissed her goodbye and he was gone.

Sally Jupiter closed the door, and for the first time she counted up how many times she and Eddie went at it, and she realised she didn't have her diaphragm in, and she didn't make Eddie wear a rubber.

She trusted him.

Even before the curse didn't come at the end of the month, even before she started whoopsing her cookies every morning, even before her waistline started to thicken and the doctor told her to stop smoking and quit drinking for a few months, she was going to be a mother, Sally knew.

Eddie came to her retirement party, despite the dirty looks, and there was a picture of that party that said it all.

Sally was standing up, her six-month belly sticking out in front of her, and Eddie sat beside her, looking at her with a proud smirk on his face and his smoldering stogie in his mouth, with Larry on Sally's other side, looking pissed-off as Sally ignored him.

While they were eating, under the table so nobody could see, Eddie kept putting is hand on her belly and patting her.

It almost made her cry.

They had a few moments before everybody left, just a few moments of Eddie in his mask and his frayed fatigue pants and his army undershirt, a moment where he put his big hand on her big belly and left it there.

"I can feel her movin' around, Sal. She's gonna be a real spitfire. Just like you. An' me. I mean, I did do, that, right?"

"Well, it sure as fuck wasn't Larry. How do you know it's gonna be a girl?"

"You can tell by the way she lies. My Ma spent her whole life pregnant, I know about this shit. So, whaddya wanna do? Y'wanna ditch pencil-dick, and move in with me an' the kids?"

Sally just looked at him.

He was serious.

Sally wanted to say yes.

He would probably never marry her, or quit fucking around with other women, or drinking, and they'd probably scream at each other all the time and she'd end up throwing things at him every night while he laughed at her, but then again Sally wasn't so sure she liked Larry and quiet and the pretence of monogamy, anyway.

Eddie had raised his family to turn out pretty well; he kept his brutality and his violence out of his home; he might not have been the Father of the Year, but, then again, she wasn't exactly Little Miss Housewife, either.

And every night they were together could be like that day in her apartment.

And she loved him, she really did, and he loved her.

But that thing he did, that terrible, unforgivable thing, maybe she could forget about it for a day.

But to bear Eddie's weight, and the weight of his love and his craziness, to bear it every day?

To ask their child to do the same?

For a lifetime?

"Eddie, I'd like to say yes. But, we'd never make it."

"Yeah, I thought so. It's prob'ly for the best. I mean, the kids, after what they came up with, I'm not so bad. They got a house and a dog and clean clothes and food on the table and whatever else they gotta have. I never hit 'em with my fist, or with my hands, even. The old wooden spoon for when they get outa line. But they all smoke, and they all curse, and they're a pretty rowdy bunch, even the girls. I'm alright, but I ain't no Father of the Year. Kid's better off without me." He said.

"It's not that, Eddie. It's me. You and me, if we lived together…I dunno."

"Yeah, I know, Sal. Hey, don't be a stranger. Call me, okay?"

"I will, Eddie. I will. I promise."

"Hey Sal?"

`"Yeah, Eddie?"

"Ya know I still love you, right?"

He still had his hand on her belly.

"Yeah, Eddie. I know."

Sally put her hand over his hand, and smiled.

"She's gonna be just like us when she grows up. Only better." Sally promised.

"Yeah. Better." Eddie replied.

**Afterword: Bensonhurst, 1949**

**I: Sally**

Sally didn't call him, first.

She just dressed Laurie and packed her into the car and drove to Bensonhurst.

It was the middle of the day; and when Eddie came to the door he was still in his bathrobe.

"Hiya, Eddie. I…I thought you oughta get to see her."

Laurie was almost a year old; she had started walking at six months, and Sally hadn't been able to stop her, since.

As soon as she unstrapped her from the stroller, Laurie pushed herself out and started to make a beeline for the kitchen, but Eddie expertly headed her off at the pass.

"Whoa, there, Laurie! Where are you going?"

He had that look on his face, again, that un-Eddie look.

He picked her up, and Laurie just looked at him, fascinated.

"Thirsty." She told him, and pointed at the kitchen.

"She talks already. A lot." Sally explained

"Yeah, we're like that in my family. You don't wanna know what my first word was. C'mon, kid. We'll getcha a glass of milk."

Sally was nervous, with Laurie in Eddie's arms; her heart was in her mouth.

She reminded herself that he had helped to raise his entire family; he was no stranger to babies, or small children; but Sally knew just how violent Eddie was and what an animal he could be.

_Let him go. _

_This is all the time with his daughter he's going to get._

Sally went into the kitchen, and Laurie was sitting on the counter, drinking a glass of milk, staring at Eddie with big brown eyes.

She finished her milk and put the glass down.

Eddie picked her up again.

"You know who I am, honey?" he asked.

Laurie shook her head.

"I'm your Daddy."

"Eddie!"

"What? She's not gonna remember any of this."

Laurie gave her father a quizzical look, and turned to her mother.

"Give her back, Eddie."

"Here yuh go. Lemme get dressed. We'll go to the park."

***

It was a nice little park, within walking distance, with a nice, clean playground and plenty of benches.

Lots of little kids playing on the playground; women with babies in strollers, that kind of thing.

One of them looked pretty familiar.

Eddie's sister, Edie.

The baby boy in her stroller looked to be about the same age as Laurie, and whenthe baby he saw Eddie, he smiled and reached for him.

"Hiya Edie. Sal brought Laurie to the park. I seeya Paulie. I ain't lettin' you out. You'll run alla way to Manhattan."

The first thing Sally blurted out to Edie Blake was an apology.

"What? Oh, don't worry about it. Is this my niece? She looks just like you."

Sally didn't stop Edie from picking Laurie up.

"I think she looks like Eddie."

"No, my Paulie looks like Eddie. He's only a year old, and he makes the same goddamn faces. How old's Laurie? About ten months?"

"Eleven."

They all sat on the bench together, all three of them, talking about nothing in particular.

Laurie was trying to get out of her stroller, and Paulie showed her the latch.

They were both off like a shot, and Eddie caught them both, one with each hand.

He gave Paulie back to Edie, but held onto Laurie.

"You gotta watch these two. Well, I gotta coupla things I gotta do, today. I'll see ya later, Edie. Paulie too. Hey Paulie, stay outa trouble, huh, kiddo? Thanks for bringin' Laurie around, Sal."

It was hard for Eddie to hand his daughter over, harder still for Sally to watch, as Laurie's little fist detached from where she was clinging to his coat.

Did she know who he was?

Eddie looked like he was going to say something, but then he just turned around, lit a cigar, and started to walk away.

"Bye-bye!" Paulie yelled after him.

"Bye-bye!" Laurie echoed.

Sally felt her heart breaking; it was killing her, watching him walk up the street in his usual way, playing it off like it was nothing.

_You know he has a heart._

_You think his heart isn't breaking, right now?_

_Goddamn you, Eddie, how come you have to hide that glimmer of gentleness under being such a bad, mean, rotten son-of-a-bitch._

Sally wiped the tears from her face, angrily.

"Edie, I…"

"Don't tell me about it. I know my own brother."

"Yeah, but, look, I don't have any other family. Neither does Laurie. Just you, Eddie's family. It doesn't seem right that Laurie shouldn't know her family. Even if she doesn't know they are her family. Her and your little Paulie seem to get along. It's a nice park. I think I'll bring her here."

"That's a good idea. So, who cleans your house?"

"Me. And I'm a lousy housekeeper."

"Well, I work for a lot of masks. I don't put my nose where it don't belong, and I can get you references. And, if you gotta go out, I can sit for Laurie. I don't work nights."

"I don't need references. Thank you, Edie."

Edie shrugged.

"Least I can do. He's not all a bad man, you know."

"I know, Edie. So, you wanna get the kids some ice cream? I feel adventurous, today." Sally said.

Edie Blake laughed.

"Sure. Why not?"

The two women stood up, and pushed their strollers away from the park, and across the street to the ice cream truck.

_Author's Note: Want to know what happens next? Look for the sequel, _I Can't Quit You Baby_, under Comics-Watchmen- Edward B./Sally J._


End file.
